Document sheds new light on Jan Palach’s suicide forty years on

It is 40 years ago this Friday that student Jan Palach set himself alight
following the Soviet-led invasion of 1968. Palach’s suicide turned him
into a symbol of national resistance, and to this day, Czechs and Slovaks
remember what he did for his country. On the eve of this 40th anniversary,
historians have just discovered a document which sheds new light upon his
actions.

Jan Palach
This Friday marks the 40th anniversary of student Jan Palach’s
self-immolation. It was right here on Wenceslas Square that the
twenty-year-old set himself alight in protest against increasing public
apathy following the Russian invasion of 1968.

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Palach’s death, three historians
have compiled a collection of his letters from the days leading up to his
suicide. In their research, they came across one document, written days
before his death, calling on students to revolt en masse against
censorship, which had been reinforced, and the curtailment of civil
liberties.

Petr Blažek is one of the editors of this new compendium, he talks about
this interesting new find:

“It’s a document that Jan Palach wrote to student leader Lubomír
Holeček at the start of January 1969, suggesting that the students at
Charles University in Prague should rise up and occupy the Czechoslovak
Radio building on Vinohradská Street. He wanted the students to capture
the radio and broadcast calls for there to be a general strike.”

Palach’s suggestion was dismissed and no such broadcast was ever
transmitted from one of these Český rozhlas studios.

Petr Blažek
The document itself has quite a story, taking researchers decades to find.
I asked historian Petr Blažek, why exactly it had taken so long to
unearth:

“The document was seized by the StB in 1970 as part of their
investigation into the radical student group ‘Youth for Revolution’. A
lot of the members of this group came from Charles University and knew
about Palach’s suggestion, and were even planning to occupy the radio to
mark the first anniversary of Palach’s death. After the revolution, the
letter was overlooked because it was filed alongside a much more famous
document – Palach’s final manifesto, and no one catalogued this
document properly.”

The new discovery is being hailed as important by historians working on
the period. For his part, Petr Blažek says it places Jan Palach’s
suicide in a new context:

“I think that this document is interesting because it sheds light on the
way that Palach was thinking about formulating his final letter, and his
final set of demands. It shows us that he was considering trying to occupy
the radio building. And it shows us that he was considering different forms
of protest, and that his immolation, which was a very radical thing to do
indeed, did not take place on the spur of the moment.”

Palach’s self-immolation turned him into a symbol of national
resistance. Over the next week, a series of events, including a special
mass, will commemorate his bold deed.